Consilium, Inc.

Richard L Hess

Rajesh U Mashruwala

Subhash B Tantry

Barry A Lozier

William L Verplank

An object-oriented architecture for a factory floor management software system is described in which factory floor entities are modelled as factory objects within a relational database. The architecture includes X-terminal or bar code devices for facilitating user interaction with the system via one or more of the factory floor entities; Application Engines for processing user interaction of events and generating application service requests; and Application servers for processing the application service requests and generating database service requests in response. These database service requests are utilized to retrieve, manipulate and update data stored within the relational database. Communication Managers are employed for coordinating interprocess communication between the Application Engines, the Application Servers, and the Database Servers. Each of these major components are distributed among computer resources that are networked across the factory floor.

Object-oriented architecture for factory floor management

A method and apparatus for displaying the relationship of objects in a factory on a computer system display. A first icon is displayed, the first icon representing a first class of factory objects. A second icon is displayed, the second icon representing a second class of factory objects. A first connector connecting the first icons and second icons is displayed representing the relationship between the first and the second class of factory objects. The first icon is selected, thus displaying a first list of names of all objects comprising the first class of factory objects. Then, a first name from the first list of names is selected, and a second list of names is displayed. The second list of names comprises the names of all objects in the second class of factory objects associated with the object from the first class having the first name.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Richard L Hess